


you're holding me like water (in your hands)

by kissmeinnewyork



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bonding, F/M, Near Death Experience, Nearly Drowning, Oops, Romance, Water
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:02:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24844258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kissmeinnewyork/pseuds/kissmeinnewyork
Summary: “I feel like this is a good point to apologise to you,” Natasha shouts, water caught in her lungs, “I’ve done a lot of things, and probably would’ve done a lot more…”“We are not using our last moments for apologies, Romanoff! And besides—I’d forgive you. I always forgive you. Every single time.”(steve/natasha fic)
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 3
Kudos: 46





	you're holding me like water (in your hands)

**Author's Note:**

> this has been sitting in my drafts for about a year so i thought i would finally post! there's another part coming soon :) enjoy!

It begins on a wayward op.

Really, it’s supposed to be so easy. The brief doesn’t sound any difficult than any other—simpler, even. Phillip Green is just yet another power-hungry, rich son-of-a-bitch who’d got his hands on some pretty dangerous alien tech on the black market. He’d been storing weapons in an underwater facility just off the Hudson River and him and Natasha had been tasked with retrieving them, maybe dragging the bastard out too. They’d—well, _she’d_ —interrogate him first, find out if he had any other smaller lock-ups elsewhere, then they’d seize the arms. In and out in an hour, two tops.

Upon entering the base, they discover quickly that it’s far from just a storage facility. Green had built a conglomeration of extremely high-tech labs down there and after taking out several technicians Natasha had found out that he was using the weapons to engineer even _more_ dangerous weapons. The kind that rip apart cities like fabric. The kind that under absolutely _no_ circumstances should be deployed—only destroyed.

She’d radioed in the findings and then they’d gone on the hunt for Green. They’d drag him out kicking-and-screaming if they had to, but he wasn’t slipping out under the radar. The man had his finger on a lot of unfriendly buttons. When they do find him, he’s so non-threatening it’s comical. Natasha uses it as an excuse to show off, silently and stealthily wrangling across the cut-through ceiling until she’s directly above him. She yells his name before landing on his shoulders, cup of tea smashing onto the floor and his body crumbling.

As a man, without a pistol in his pocket or a gang of leather-clad bodyguards, he’s kind of pitiful. They always are. His hair is mostly grey and even that is fading away. The skin on his face is rough like sandpaper but wrinkled in the places you’d expect. But his smirk—the bad ones, the real bad ones, they have this smile. It’s the smile of a man who isn’t often told the word _no._

He stands back whilst Natasha does her thing. He’s good in combat—it’s what he was trained for, after all—but he’s always been a terrible liar. He’s always been terrible at not letting his true emotions bleed through, crafting that mask that Natasha so effortlessly wears. She’s much better at the questioning side of things. _The Mistress of Manipulation,_ Fury had once called her, and the look on her face afterwards proved his point entirely.

“You’ve got quite the laboratory down there, Mr Green,” Natasha says, in a low purr that is just so _her._ They’d tied Green to his office chair in the middle of an otherwise empty warehouse-style room, and Steve’s first thought had been _what on Earth was he planning to do with all this space?_ “With all that technology you could host one hell of a party.”

Green laughs a little, but Natasha’s stare does not waver. “The Avengers would be at the top of my invite list, Miss Romanoff.”

“That’s kind of you,” she follows, quick as usual. “Although I’m terrible at RSVPing.”

Green looks over at Steve. It’s the first time he’s been permitted to join the conversation. “Is that right, Captain?”

Steve doesn’t reply. Keeps his arm crossed, his line-of-sight focused.

“Not very vocal, that one,” Green tilts back to Natasha, “Thought he’d at least have some quips about fighting the good fight. You know how these do-gooders are.”

“I do,” Natasha says, “And unfortunately for you, Mr Green, I am not one of them.”

Natasha violently kicks Green’s chair and he flies backwards, smashing his head off the steel floor. Out of the corner of his eye, Steve can see blood curdling between the cracks, sickly and thick.

“What the hell, Natasha!” he exclaims, his voice loud in the empty room. “We were supposed to interrogate him!”

Natasha merely shrugs. “Relax, Rogers. I’ve done this hundreds of times. That jerk had nothing.”

“You can’t possibly know that for certain.”

“I can, and I do,” She props a USB stick in his direction. “He’s a rich man, and only marginally intelligent. Got everything we need off the hard-drives in his little munitions factory.”

Steve steps closer to where Green’s body lays, nudges his hand a little with his foot. There’s no doubt that he’s dead—that head wound was abrupt and intense, the back of his skull pretty much caved in. His eyes are wide open, vacant and creepy. His mouth still slightly open like he’s about to say something.

“Let’s get out of here,” he murmurs quietly, looking away. Natasha stuffs her hands in her pockets and makes her way towards the door. He vaguely wonders if dead faces haunt her as much as they haunt him, and decides on probably not. You can’t do the things Natasha Romanoff does and have a fully-functioning conscience. She’d just… self-destruct.

Above their heads, there’s a sudden noise—like pipes shifting, weight compressing them. Natasha turns on her heels and narrows her eyes at him.

“You hear that?”

Steve nods. Quickens his pace. “Come on.”

There’s something unnerving in the air that feels just _wrong_ and he can tell Natasha can feel it too, her frame shifty and uneasy. He elbows the door open and she follows through. As it eases closed, he can hear the rush of water overhead. It’s free, unrestrained water, flowing on the floor that’s barely feet above them.

“Oh my god,” Natasha says, staring upwards. “They’re flooding the base.”

He grabs her forearm and suddenly they’re running, feet pounding on the metal ground and clanging like a machine, rhythmic and consistent. Their footsteps echo the beat of his heart. _Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum._ There may still be a way out on the opposite side, but he knows more than most how cruel water can be. You can’t outrun a flood.

“Fury!” Natasha yells into her radio, “Fury—you better have some really good reasoning for this, or—“

The radio merely crackles in response. There’s a good chance it won’t work this far below water; his hasn’t even buzzed in quite some time. Natasha angrily smashes hers against the floor, like that helps, but when they discover a dead-end it seems like a fair enough reaction.

“We had this all under control,” Natasha says, breathing hard, “They _know_ we’re still down here!”

“The most efficient way of making sure nobody gets the weapons is destroying them,” Steve answers her, looking ahead. “Maybe they thought we’d find a way out.”

“But _we haven’t,_ Steve!”

The water breaks through the door at the other end of the floor. It pelts towards them, deafening, and Steve’s heartbeat surges up through his throat. He looks at her with desperation and for once, she seems to throw the same look back. They run, because there is little else they can do. They run until his whole body is (ironically) on fire, but the whole of the base is submerged in river water. They’ve been _trapped._

“There must be a window,” Natasha gasps, “They can’t have done this and not—not created an exit option. You don’t just construct a whole building underwater without some way of getting out!”

The water collects round their shoes. It’s black, like ink, and it strikes him before long they will not be able to see anything at all. The lights along the ceiling will flicker and die—he’s amazed that they’re still going. They must have some sort of independent power source.

“I don’t—I don’t know what to do,” he says, but even the desperation has left his tone. It’s just…resignation.

For a moment, they just stare at each other, the water climbing. They’d not been trained for this—for nature, for how it just appears and does what it wants and there’s not a lot you can do about it. Quickly the water overwhelms Natasha’s height and her arms reach out, clinging on to his neck. He clutches her body as tight as he can. He can’t—they can’t do this alone. He can’t let her wash away.

“I feel like this is a good point to apologise to you,” Natasha shouts, water caught in her lungs, “I’ve done a lot of things, and probably _would’ve_ done a lot more…”

“We are not using our last moments for apologies, Romanoff! And besides—I’d forgive you. I always forgive you. Every single time.”

They’re pressed against the ceiling and the next breath could be their last, but she smiles. It’s a good thing to end on. Natasha Romanoff’s damn _smile._ “You’re too nice to me.”

When the water consumes them her hands cup his face, her eyes huge and green. His hands mimic the action. It’s almost as if she’s saying _if I have to die, at least it’s with you._

When he looks up, though, the faintest smudges of light catch his eye. At first he thinks it must be one of the lights—but there’s some sort of mental grid and beyond that, transparency. It’s a _window._ An exit hatch.

Natasha’s eyes are closing and his lungs are burning, but he shakes her violently and gestures upwards. Her body bolts into life, but the intensity of the serum running through his veins makes it easier to last underwater than it does for her. She pushes the grid with her hands but he easily smashes through it with his shield, still strapped to his back. The window is harder to manage, so he urges her to cling to his neck while he breaks it.

The first breath is desperate, burning, painful.

The second breath is relief. Sheer, unparalleled _relief._

And the third…the third is half his and half Natasha’s, glorious, unrestrained. A poignant _fuck you_ to nature, and more prominently, Nicholas fucking Fury.

“Come on,” Natasha says, hair plastered to her forehead. “I know somewhere we can go.”


End file.
